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Austinites are hooked on college football. And they're not the only ones.

This year's national championship college football game between the Texas Longhorns and the University of Southern California Trojans inspired local Longhorns and out-of-state fans alike to rush for tickets to the big game.

And several Austin-based ticket brokers cashed in on the Longhorns' winning season, with many offering Rose Bowl tickets in early December.

"We marketed Rose Bowl seats as soon as they were available," says Jason Randall, CEO of Austin retail ticket broker Coast to Coast Tickets Inc. "We sold seats as early as December 6 ... and had seats available for purchase right up until kickoff."

Although many brokers that offer tickets to the entire college football bowl season experience an increase in business in December and January, some, like Randall's company, have seen a particularly strong surge in business recently.

Because Coast to Coast Tickets does business internationally, Randall says only about 5 percent of the company's transactions are local. But by offering tickets to such high-profile events, ticket brokers often gain access to new customers, says Jim Barr, a member of the board of directors of the National Association of Ticket Brokers.

"In this year's case, with two very large schools, both being undefeated, [the Rose Bowl] was a very popular event. Not all years is this so," says Barr, who is the president of Ticket Attractions of Houston Inc.

Some local ticket brokers, such as Red Carpet Tickets Inc., offered special packages for the Rose Bowl game. Red Carpet Tickets usually offers its services only to members of Dallas-based golf resort company Club Corp., but this year the company offered Rose Bowl packages to the public.

Red Carpet Tickets flew a chartered jet to Las Vegas before the game and shuttled passengers on a bus to and from Pasadena, Calif. The public price of the package was about $1,425, with Club Corp. members charged about $100 less.

"We came close to filling the plane, and more than half our customers were non-Club Corp. members," says Brian Peters, owner of Red Carpet Tickets. "It was a very successful event for us, and we've seen a big increase in business because of the Rose Bowl package."

Austin's TicketCity.com Inc., which offers tickets for concerts, sports events and theater shows in the United States and internationally, also got a business boost, thanks to the Rose Bowl.

Randy Cohen, Ticket City's CEO, says the event catapulted the company to a record year.

Red Carpet Tickets' Peters says his company has been experiencing followup business from Rose Bowl customers, and anticipates eight to 10 orders for the upcoming Masters Golf Tournament from those clients.

According to a 2001 study, by Austin's AngelouEconomics Inc., at the request of the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau, UT home football games bring in about 27,000 visitors, with fans outside Austin buying more than 41 percent of all season tickets and booking about 11,000 hotel rooms.

The average home-game visitor spends $188 per day, according to the study, and each home game adds about $8 million to the local economy. Overall, UT football home games have a total economic impact of about $18 million for Austin, although the ACVB says those numbers likely have increased since 2001.

On the back of a winning season, ticket brokers are expecting their surge in business to continue into the Longhorns' regular football season, which begins Sept. 2 with a home game against North Texas.

"We expect UT sales to be strong next fall, at least as strong as this year," Randall says. "Obviously, things would have been stronger had [UT quarterback] Vince Young decided to return. ... But the team's early 2006 play will be a strong factor on demand as well."

Jimmy Romack, owner of Austin-based broker Ticket Cloud, says he also expects to see a sales increase for 2006 home game tickets, as do Ticket City's Cohen and Red Carpet Tickets' Peters.

"We've already had people from Austin and outside the city making sure they lock in their tickets for next season," Cohen says.

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